Creative First Aid ✏️

Why pencils and erasers are not just for young children

I was shocked and saddened when a fellow teacher told me that when he was in gradeschool, his teacher told him to always write in pen. He had “outgrown pencils,” which were for little kids.

My grandfather used soft-graphite pencils up until he left this earth at 93. His father did the same. They were both musicians and preferred soft graphite to mark up their sheet music with notes from their conductor and notes to themselves. But musical markings, once memorized, can become visual clutter. Erasers take care of that. 😀

During the pandemic, I haven’t always been able to see my student’s writing tools and pens have slipped past my view a couple of times. When we have needed to change what my students wrote in pen — answers to a music theory question or as markings on pieces of music — let’s just say we have had to get creative. Even when students have used “erasable pens,” we have had trouble locating the specific kind of eraser that goes with the pen.

Top 5 reasons to use a pencil while rehearsing and playing music

5. Pencils are quiet. There are no caps to pop or pull off that can then fall on the ground and roll around potentially distracting you, your bandmates, choir mates or conductor (eek!).

4. Wood-barrel pencils are pretty inexpensive and can therefore easily be kept in multiples wherever music is played.

3. Pencils come in different thicknesses to accomodate any stage of writing and can be used at thicker widths for injury or illness recovery.

2. They smell great while being sharpened … Sharpening a pencil is quite a satisfying task break from rehearsing and playing music!

1. Using pencil, with ample access to eraser(s), promotes creative expression. Knowing something can be erased takes away the need to edit while writing or to be what some call a “perfectionist” about creativity.

Some of my students have sensory avoidant personalities in that they avoid certain sounds, smells or textures. They might prefer mechanical pencils over manually sharpened wood ones, which is fine. Replacing graphite rods in mechanical pencils can be similarly satisfying to sharpening the wood ones.

Let pencils be pencils, and erasers be erasers

Many people tend to rely on the erasers at the back ends of pencils to do their creative sweeping up. But the eraser at the end of a pencil is almost never big enough to cover the amount of work done with the rest of the pencil. There is an easy way around this: keep separate erasers!

This is my go-to eraser which is good at rubbing out marks made by my favorite HB2 graphite pencils!

I like to have a very big, easy-to-find eraser on hand to take away anything I might have miswritten. This gives me the freedom to write whatever I want. It helps me to know that in taking notes, even while listening to and watching a student, I can walk back what I write easily and in a tidy way with this great, big fun eraser.

Even smaller erasers are satisfying to work with. Although there are plenty of cute and fun multi-colored and shaped erasers to choose from, I prefer polymer erasers like the one shown (but in any color), because they are really good at sweeping up after soft graphite and pretty good with color pencils, too.

How to Choose Your Pencil

Pencils come in a wide range of sizes, shapes and graphite density. Softer graphite like an HB2 will give you a darker line that is a bit harder to erase. Harder graphite will give you fainter lines that are easier to erase. Ideally, you can try out your pencils at an art supply store before investing in your chosen ones.

During this pandemic I can understand why you wouldn’t want to go out to try pencils in person that have most definitely been tried by other people. To get your own sample of different pencil leads (actually graphites … 🚫 nothing poisonous to see here 🚫), get yourself a drawing pack like this one from Texas Art Supply, or this other one from the same place.

Wide, triangular-barrel pencils are good for young or tired hands (see these also). Sometimes I prefer these to their “standard-size” and lanky cousins. When my arthritis is on high, these can make writing much easier for me and help me keep from taking myself too seriously as well also as well … ugh …where is that eraser?! 😅

A Pencil Table

Because I love you — I mean I love pencils … I found this graphic to help you choose the one for you:

Sample Palatte from Pencils dot Com and somewhere in my dreams :)

Email me questions, rants and raves:

pencil at swanwrites dot org //or// music at notearspiano dot com!